Take heed to yourselves, lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, and lest
you be guilty of that which daily you condemn. Will you make it your work to magnify God, and,
when you have done, dishonor Him as much as others? Will you proclaim Christ’s governing
power, and yet condemn it, and rebel yourselves? Will you preach His laws, and willfully break
them?”
“If sin be evil, why do you live in it? If it be not, why do you dissuade men from it? If it
be dangerous, how do you venture on it? If it be not, why do you tell men so? If God’s
threatening be true, why do you not fear them? If they be false, why do you needlessly trouble
men with them, and put them into such frights without a cause.”
“Do you know the judgment of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of
death; and yet will you do them? “Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou
that sayest a man should not commit adultery,’ or be drunk, or covetous, art thou such thyself?
‘Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonorest thou God?’ What!
Shall the same tongue speak evil the speakest against evil? Shall those lips censure, and
slander, and backbite your neighbour, that cry down these and the like things in others?”
“Take heed to yourselves; lest you cry down sin, and yet do not overcome it; lest, while
you seek to bring it down in others, you bow to it, and become its slave yourselves: ‘For of
whom a man is overcome, the same he is brought into bondage.’ ‘To whom ye yield yourselves
servants to obey, his servants ye are whom you obey, whether of sin unto death, or of
obedience unto righteousness.’ O brethren! it is easier to chide at sin, than to overcome it.